


Big Damn Heroes

by Querulousgawks



Series: Tumblr Prompts [2]
Category: Firefly, Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Tumblr Prompt, meeting in prison au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 15:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4024540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Veronica and her ragtag crew pick up another stray: Certified Companion Logan Echolls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Damn Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> For an anonymous Tumblr ask: Logan/Veronica, meeting in prison AU.

Veronica caught a glint on the horizon just after sunset on the third day. Rescue. Give her crew an hour to land, another to take out the guard encampment…they would be out before midnight, even on this tiny planet’s shortened cycle. At less than 40 hours, it would be her briefest stint in an Alliance prison. 

It hadn’t felt short. Partly because she’d spent a quarter of those hours being interrogated, and even banished-to-backwater Alliance units had a few uncomfortable techniques to go along with their shoddy security practices. But only partly. Something else was making the minutes stretch out like a super-heated protein bar: her unlikely cell mate, one Certified Companion Logan Echolls.

“You’re a whore,” she’d said blankly when he introduced himself, regretting it even as his teasing grin turned to an ugly smirk. That was her, making allies in tight places. 

“Only you outworlders have whores, Sergeant Mars. I have six years in Academy and a list of clients that could buy this planet with their pocket credits.”

“It’s Captain,” she’d said, oddly comforted by the way he bit back, “whatever the guards told you. And I don't see anyone lining up to buy you out of here.”

Echolls had lolled against the bars, eyeing her, before looking away and speaking a little too dismissively: “Two-bit mercenaries in a trade dispute with my guild. Won’t last long.” 

Right. Veronica might not know the details of galactic negotiations - not having been born in a gold-plated solar system like the 09 cluster that housed the Companions Guild -but she'd been a soldier once, then a goddamn space pirate. She was intimately familiar with the kind of bluster that covered fear. 

 _Picking up strays, marshmallow?_ Her first mate’s voice had whispered in her mind. She’d told mind-Wallace to shut up, and challenged Logan to a game of poker with the cards she’d wheedled out of the rawest Alliance recruit. The companion was a pampered house cat, whatever his current troubles. He would land on his feet one way or another.

Now she watched as the speck in the sky grew to the size of a satellite and began to leave a contrail. They were burning atmosphere, a trick that surely had Weevil swearing in the engine room. Wallace must have been frantic, for Jackie to push Serenity this hard. She would have sharp words for Veronica about the fuel costs of a dramatic rescue.

Just more proof that their lives were plenty complicated as it was. No sense taking on extra trouble, not to mention extra weight.

(It was a different motto, in the war years. The Browncoats swore to farmboys and bragged to arms dealers: Mars and Fennel never left a man behind.) 

Logan stretched to his full height then fell gracefully against the bars beside her, too close. He’d won three games of poker with that trick, proximity and patter throwing her off guard. That she then won the next five with math and sleight of hand was scant consolation. 

“Making a wish, Cap?” he asked softly, eyes on the guard foolishly far from earshot. He hadn’t glanced at the sky, but she was suddenly certain he knew help was on the way. 

For her. He was dead weight, hazardous material. (He had stepped between her and the guards before he even knew her name, much less what was coming to her.) He was companion-trained, could probably have clients fighting to sneak him out the second his contract was settled. (He was an inworlder, used to soft Alliance aristocracy. No one here would observe Guild law.) 

He was not on her crew. So he wasn’t her problem.

“We’ll have a shuttle free,” Veronica blurted. 

He waggled his eyebrows at her, of course. “Is that a solicitation, sweetheart?”

 _Zero_ gorram self-preservation. She hated that in a man. “For rent. Commercial rates, but there’s room to live and…conduct your business. We’re headed to Persephone. The clientele will be fancy enough even for you.”

“And your clients? They get you in this situation often?”

“Just a trade dispute,” she parroted sweetly, and watched him fight a smile. “We're not as pedigreed an institution as your Guild, I’m sure, but there’s plenty of honest folk that need a transport service.”

The smile won out. “I bet you’ve even met a couple of them, in your honest travels.”

“Well, if you want to join their ranks…” Veronica said, and maybe she paused for effect, she’s a performer, sue her. Logan leaned in, a flash lit the sky, and she murmured, “then run _toward_ the ship, and _away_ from the bomb.”

Right on cue, the tower blew up, and their guard scrambled away from his post. Logan whipped around to gawk for barely a second before turning back to her, alarm rapidly changing to - exhilaration, mischief, she couldn’t describe that look but she _knew_ it, and it laid her last doubts to rest even as she reached through the bars and shoved the key she’d palmed from her interrogator blindly into the lock.

Trouble would find them anyway, she reasoned, sprinting towards her ship as it scraped a trench into the now-abandoned prison yard. No harm in having some respectability on board when it came around. (Logan whooped next to her and added a  _skip_ to his stride when Serenity’s door dropped with a clang in front of them.)

A little respectability. Oh well. She’d think of something more convincing to tell Wallace, about why she picked up this particular stray.

Maybe even the truth, if she could figure out what it was.


End file.
